


Pretend

by mewlingss



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Hurt/Comfort, Zutara, just alot alot alot of hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24789154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewlingss/pseuds/mewlingss
Summary: What if Katara hadn't ran when she saw Zuko at the Tea House?Zuko deals with his new relocation and life in Ba Sing Se. He wishes he was someone different who can enjoy this new chance at life. One day, a blue-eyed water tribe girl walks into the tea house where he works.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 160





	Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> I'm skewing the narrative of s2. Lets pretend this is right after the Avatar gang arrive at Ba Sing Se, Aang is still being a whiny baby, Sokka and Toph are fighting. Katara needs to get away. Zuko needs to get away. They pretend together, that they're someone else.

Pao Family Tea House was becoming unnervingly loud, Zuko thinks, placing the steaming pot in front of his enthusiastic patrons. Located in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se, the tea shop was supposed to be inconspicuous; a diversion for him and his uncle, Iroh, to hide until they figured out their next move. But what move is that?, Zuko nods in thanks to the ever-flowing spewing of gratitude from the customers. His uncle’s infamous tea is going to blow their cover eventually. 

_Marvelous tea!  
I came all the way from the upper ring!  
I haven't had tea this good in years._

Zuko watches Uncle Iroh bloom under the compliments. He notices the spring in the old man’s step, the cheerful anecdotes and flirtatious quips he throws over his shoulders at the customers. Uncle Iroh is usually cheerful, but something about being in that tea house makes him a different man. Zuko wonders what that feels like, to be a different person; one with honor, and family, and no shame to run away from. He slams the tray at the tea station, and not an elusive hope he can't seem to grasp. 

‘You are becoming lazy, nephew.’ Uncle Iroh sets a fresh pot of his new concoction onto Zuko’s serving tray.  
‘I’m not lazy’ he mutters between clenched teeth.  
‘You’re not smiling at the customers, either, I might have to speak to management about this’ his uncle is already busying his hands with something else, cutting leaves and roots into other lidless pots as he speaks, ‘I’m soon to be promoted, something you are far away from’ 

‘Yeah yeah’ Zuko glowers at him, but turning around he can’t help the smile that threatens to pull at the side of his mouth. Maybe he just needs to be different, to forget where he came from, and just focus on their tea shop and the little shabby apartment Uncle Iroh keeps calling home. 

Something shifts in the air and he thinks someone is blocking the entrance of the tea shop. He looks up from setting the fresh pot and for a moment his hands shake so hard, it is a miracle he does not drop his tray. _Not a miracle_ , Uncle Iroh would say, _you are a prince, you are a trained warrior. Do not hesitate, breathe in._ He tries to breathe in when he takes in the water tribe girl. His adrenaline kicks in, he thinks the Avatar is here. My one remaining hope for salvaging my honor is here. But there is no one else, just the blue eyed water tribe girl. Katara, he had heard the Avatar and his gang call her. She is alone, only her inside the tea shop, staring back at him in the same shell-shocked expression. For a moment, a wave of revulsion and unfettered rage race across her face, and then it rolls off her; her stiff shoulders become squared, her frown deepens, and she rips her gaze away from him. Zuko thinks she will leave, until she walks in gingerly and sits at an empty table.  
He doesn’t know what to do, he can’t think straight. All he can think of is his hands wrapped tightly and viciously around her wrists, a fleeting expression of fear in her eyes before determined resolve stares back at him. 

_I’ll save you from the pirates_ , he had taunted her. But she had fought back, more bravely and fiercely than he would expect from a water tribe girl.

‘Is that––’ it is as if his uncle senses his distress, one hand on his shoulder in quiet reassurance.  
‘––Yes, uncle! The Avatar is in Ba Sing Se, I need to find him, I need to––’  
His uncle shakes his head in disapproval. ‘Zuko’ he says, ‘we are here to start over. Enough of this, purge your soul. Forget the shame that follows you. This girl is alone, she is not with the Avatar. She is only a customer’  
The old familiar rage he had thought doused is stirring faintly, at the tip of his fingers, in the edge of his vision, ‘but, uncle, she can––’  
‘She is a customer, go take her order, young man’ It is Iroh’s commanding, no-nonsense tone. Zuko feels like a child again, petulant and yet responsive to commands. He marches to where Katara is seated, he watches her straighten up in her seat. He had stared at her before, in the midst of battle as she fought him time and again, or whilst taunting her when she was in his arms, but, he thinks, he didn’t realise how blue her eyes were before. He hadn’t rested enough the past months to think about much else except the Avatar, and now, noticing the deep-set and luminous blue gaze, Zuko feels unhinged. 

‘You’ the words escape him. He thought of threatening her, of shouting at her to reveal the Avatar’s whereabouts, but the defeated slope of her shoulder and the tired expression on her face makes him hesitate.  
‘Zuko’ she says in return. Her voice has a ring to it, he is irritated at himself for noticing that. 

They don’t speak. Katara sits straight-backed as she meets his gaze, and he stands silently, arms wrapped around his tray as if like a shield. I am not afraid of her, he reprimands himself. But she is making him feel something and that scares him. 

‘You’re different’ she murmurs, eyes gliding over him. He feels a prickle at the back of his neck, a self-conscious wave of embarrassment at the red, angry scar around his eye. He wants to hide his face from her, to throw his tray on the ground and run out to the streets to put as much distance between them as possible. But she surprises him, ‘It’s the hair. It’s longer’ 

‘Did you take the young lady’s order, nephew?’ His uncle yells across the small establishment, all heads turn to where he stood, red faced in front of Katara. He notices Iroh wink at Katara, it brings a smile, although momentarily to her lips.  
‘What will it be?’ he finally mutters, almost disdainfully.  
But she is already up on her feet, eyes averted. ‘This was a mistake. I have to go’ 

He doesn’t stop her. Although he wants to. 

*  
The next morning at the tea house, when he comes out from the storage room carrying boxes and boxes of leaves and herbs, he catches a glance of the water tribe’s blue gown at one of the tables. He finds himself staring at her as he sets his load to the floor. ‘A fly will happily settle inside your mouth if you do not close it, nephew. Although, being a refugee myself, I would wish it to find a good home inside you. A bit of a vulgar tongue, if I might warn it’ 

His teeth clank in his mouth as he straightens up and wraps the waiter’s apron around his waist. He did not sleep last night, his thoughts raced in his hands. _The Avatar is here, my destiny is here. My honor and shame is here._ But as the night progressed, he found his thoughts taking a different turn. He thought of Katara’s blue eyes, so bright and luminous like a rushing stream. Like the river he sat at its banks with his mother whilst they fed the ducks. The memory is like a shard of glass piercing his heart, as if he is bleeding from the thought of his mother. But Katara’s blue eyes, her strange appearance in the tea shop surprisingly pull him back from the dark recesses of his mind. He thinks her blue eyes are much the same color as the necklace he had stolen from Katara, right when they first met. He knew a betrothal necklace when he saw one. As a prince of the Fire Nation, he is familiar with the customs and manners of all the different peoples under Fire sovereignty. Perhaps a night or two, when he was too tired to think of ways to capture the Avatar or to restore his honor before his father, Zuko would take out the necklace from his pocket and marvel at the etchings in the blue stone. But he had lost that necklace, the Avatar had taken it back. One of Zuko’s many failures when standing up against the Avatar. 

The thought sets forth a bitterness in his soul. He grabs his tray, and finds his feet carrying him to where Katara sits. She has donned off the thick furs of the water tribe, and instead wears a thin blue linen shirt and pants, the unbearable heat of Ba Sing Se’s summer plastered a few tendrils of hair to her sweat-damp forehead. He realises she has been talking whilst he’s been watching her. 

‘What?’ He sounds angry and petulant.  
Zuko watches her take a breath, swallow a lump in her throat and start again, ‘I said’, almost in irritation at having to repeat herself, ‘I’m sorry I left like that yesterday’  
Her apology takes him off guard, he has to steady himself, one hand splayed across the table separating them. ‘Why are you here? Are you spying on me for the Avatar?’  
Katara shuts her eyes as if pained, ‘No. Just, just stop’ She opens her eyes again, as if she has finally remembered her rehearsed speech. ‘I don’t want to talk about Aang, or what we are to each other’  
‘Enemies’ he reminds her, as if he wants her to say it herself, as if to make sense of why this girl who he had chased through land and sea is sitting in front of him as if they are strangers making talk.  
She shakes her head, to convince him of otherwise, to fool herself. ‘I just want a cup of tea.’  
When he is still quiet, she looks almost desperate, ‘please’  
‘Okay’ he murmurs in hesitation, ‘a cup of tea-–’  
She nods vigorously, ‘––and just to pretend, for a while that I’m someone else’  
He feels the thrumming of blood in his ears, his palms sweating. ‘Someone else?’  
‘Yes. I’m Katara from the water tribe’ she tells him, eyes begging him to understand, ‘I’ve just moved to Ba Sing Se, I’m a refugee from the Fire Nation’  
The sinew and bones are shifting in his body, rearranging him as he eases his ragged breathing, his thoughts gone awry. ‘I’m a refugee from the Fire Nation too’ 

She smiles at him. He decides he likes it. 

*  
She comes to the tea house every morning. Katara from the Water tribe, only a refugee who likes his Uncle’s tea. His uncle doesn’t say a word about it, although Zuko keeps waiting for his intrusive prodding whilst they lie at night in their cots, staring at the ceiling, waiting to be lulled to sleep. Zuko thinks his Uncle is thinking more and more of his deceased son, it is why he is so quiet at home. But in the morning, at the tea house, he ruffles Zuko’s hair (which Zuko dislikes), barks at him to joke with the customers (which Zuko dislikes), or flirts with the old women who flock around him (which Zuko dislikes). But he never mentions the water tribe girl to Zuko; maybe he doesn’t notice her as much as Zuko does. 

He watches her sip her tea every morning, pouring over her scrolls. Waterbending scrolls?, Zuko wants to ask her every morning but stops himself. When he shoves himself out of his lonely cot, he tells himself today I will ask her. But when he is at the Tea house, passing by her table, with her neck bent reading her scrolls, He finds himself tongue-tied. Instead, he watches the way she bites her lips in concentration, how she rubs her eyes from over-exertion, and how she murmurs in approval when she takes a sip of his uncle’s tea. 

He wants her to stop coming over, but he does not really.

It has been a few weeks, they barely speak. Only the common greetings as he takes her orders. He doesn’t know why he never lets the other waiters take her orders, instead, like clock-work when he sees her take her sea, Zuko grabs his tray and walks to her. 

Today her thick, dark hair is unbound, the curls unfurl over her shoulder in disarried ringlets. She is smiling at him when he takes his usual place in front of her. ‘You’re different’ he finds himself speaking without thinking, ‘its your hair’ 

The strangest thing happens. Her cheeks, usually brown and freckled, are now awash with a fevered red. She ducks her head away and hides behind the tea house menu. Katara coughs out in embarrassment, but he can’t see her face. ‘Maybe the lavender tea today’ 

He nods. When he turns to put her order to Uncle Iroh, she stops him. ‘Well’, her tone is not embarrassed anymore, it's playful. ‘Do you like it?’  
He stammers out, ‘y-yes’. She smirks. 

He runs to the storage room to even out his erratic beating heart. He leans against the dusty wall, letting himself slide until he is seated and breathless. Why didn’t he ask her that before when she mentioned his hair? 

*  
It is the feast of the Moon. There is a festival in the city, there is music, food, and dancing. He doesn’t know why he knows this, or why he pays extra attention when a patron was explaining to Uncle Iroh where the festival is. When Uncle Iroh turns to him and says, ‘Nephew, why don’t you go to the festival tonight? You are young, you need to go out more’ 

‘Who am I going to go with?’ Zuko mutters, ‘with you, old man?’  
‘My dear prince, I was dancing with many fair ladies in festivals before thoughts of conceiving you were in the works’ Iroh is scandalised to be branded with the invalid old men. If only he would acknowledge his age, Zuko thinks, instead of constantly flirting with women in the shop. 

‘I think I’ll pass, Uncle. I’ll stay at home tonight’ When he sees his uncle’s eyes glimmering, he realises what he has said. _Home. I’m staying at Home._ Their dingy, refugee-issued apartment is home, Zuko feels a foreign warmth spread in his chest. He starts to notice he’s been feeling it more and more recently, especially when Katara smiles when he sets the teapot in front of her, or when she lifts her hair and her neck is all exposed. Zuko has to leave the arid, crowded tea house and stand outside for a moment to breathe. He wakes up with the thought of her hair wrapped around his fist. 

I’m staying home tonight, he keeps repeating to himself. But as soon as Katara arrives, no braids today, her hair thick and long down her back, and waves at him. He forgets making fun of his uncle for wanting to go to the festival. ‘Morning, Zuko’ she greets him, like she does every morning. And like every morning, the sound of his name on her tongue tugs at his heart. 

‘Did you have festivals at your water tribe?’ he blurts out.  
She raises an eyebrow at that. ‘What?’  
‘Do you like festivals?’ He tries again.  
‘Yeah’ she murmurs in hesitation, ‘who doesn’t’  
_I don’t_ , but he doesn't say that. Instead, he sets the tray on the table in front of them, willing his hands to stop shaking. ‘The feast of the moon is tonight, there is a festival’  
There is a glint in her eyes, she knows what he is asking. But she is waiting for him to strike the first move. ‘There is?’  
He glares at her. ‘Are you busy tonight?’  
She places both elbows on the table, her chin delicately placed on her open palm. ‘I’m not’  
‘Then meet me at the fountain of the upper ring’ he throws over his shoulder. He feels heated up, and it's not the ancient fire of his family brewing in his blood. Its something deep, and heady, in his stomach, spreading out and making him shake all over.  
‘Why?’  
He turns incredulously at her. ‘What?’  
She is smiling, but it is her battle-front smile. As if she is burning for a victory. ‘Why do you want me to meet you there?’  
‘I want to show you something’ 

He leaves before she says another word that can change his mind. He’s on fire. 

*  
Uncle Iroh asks him where he is going when he moves towards the door.  
‘No where’ he stutters in irritation, ‘I’m just talking a walk’  
‘A walk, I see’, his uncle takes a over-exaggerated sniff at his clothes, ‘a walk when you smell so nice must be quite the occasion’  
Zuko knows his face is red. ‘I never smell nice because I keep spilling those horrible teas you make on myself’  
‘Don’t blame the tea for your clumsiness’ He yells from the kitchen. When Zuko has his hands on the door knob, Uncle Iroh pokes his head out and says, ‘I would suggest you take a walk in the palatial gardens, I hear the guards are not on duty during the festivals, anyone can sneak in for some privacy’ 

Zuko is too terrified to ask his uncle why Iroh would need some privacy with someone. 

*  
He did not think she would actually come. Zuko doesn't want to think that she has lied and fooled the Avatar and her friends to come meet him. He doesn’t want to think of his enemies, or think of her as his enemy. He only wants to take Katara of the Water tribe to see the moon shine on its feast day. 

She is waiting for him as agreed. She is in a dress this time, lavender silk folds glide over her skin. He feels the need to put his hands on her, but he simply nods gruffly when they catch each other’s gaze.  
‘You’re late’  
‘No, I’m not’ he mutters, ‘you’re early’  
She surprises him by grabbing his arm, ‘at least one of us is. Now, what did you want to show me?’  
He looks at the crowded, bustling tents set up around the fountain and shakes his head. ‘I know somewhere’  
*  
She doesn't tell him that the palatial gardens are empty, or that they’re too quiet. He could be marching her to a trap, she must think, or that he will hold her hostage and wait for the Avatar to come claim her. But instead, Zuko watches her spread a blanket over the grass and sit on it. She looks up at him in question, ‘well are you going to sit down?’ 

He sits in a solid motion, feeling much larger than the linen they are sitting on, and increasingly aware of how small Katara feels in comparison. ‘For a refugee, you sure know good places here’ 

There is no need for her to know that Uncle Iroh brings his lady friends here after dark, there was no need for him to know that, but alas. ‘It's the only good place in Ba Sing Se’ 

‘I hate it here’ she says, crossing her legs and sitting right across from him. Her knees underneath the silk bumping against his own.  
‘You prefer home?’ he asks.  
She looks up at him with a shadowed expression. ‘Yes, but it stopped feeling like home. I-I lost my mother’ she peeks up at him through tear stained eyes, ‘the Fire Nation took her from me’ 

Your fault. This is your fault. A harsh voice taunts him inside his head, but he pushes it away. I’m a refugee of the Fire Nation, just Zuko. Only Zuko. Before he can stop himself, he places his hand over Katara’s. His large and callused over the softness of her own, he clutches her harder. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. I lost my mother too’ 

They stare at each other for a moment, until Katara exerts pressure on his hand, as if signalling back to him, _I’m sorry too_. There is a shift in the air, Katara moves closer, to the space between his crossed legs and wraps her arms around his neck. Instinctively his hands are on her waist, pulling her closer to him until he can feel her against him. He feels her breathy weeping against his neck, her wet cheeks grazing his shirt. He has not been comforted much since his mother, but he remembers how she used to hold him when upset, and for Katara he does the same. One arm wraps around her waist, pushing her into his chest until their ragged breathing is but one, and with the other hand he trails it up and down her back in relief, until her crying eases and her body heaves into him. He finds his palm sneaking up to grasp a handful of her hair, rubbing it against the calluses in his fingers, to remind himself later how she felt like. 

‘Katara, I––’  
She pulls back to look up at him, ‘Don’t, Zuko’. She kisses the corner of his mouth, and he wants to weep.  
He wants to kiss her, wants her to kiss him again. But she is off his lap, out of his arms, keeping a good distance between them. ‘I have to go’ she says. He knows she has to. He knows what she is going to say.  
‘This isn’t right. I want it to be right, but I can't wish for it to happen’ She can’t meet his gaze, even if he can’t stop looking at her, can’t stop wishing for her to look back at him. 

‘What if it happens, Katara?’ He is impulsive. His Uncle, and Azula, even his father used to tell him that.  
She smiles in forlorn. ‘Maybe’, but she sounds unconvinced, ‘I can’t come to the tea house anymore. I can’t escape my destiny, for a while, with you at the tea house I did, I thought I could pretend to be someone different. To ignore my responsibilities, and I started wanting different things’  
_Wanting you_ , she meant. Zuko fists his shirt, where his heart is. ‘But it's not right. I can’t run away from problems, I have to face them. So do you. There is a war coming.’  
‘I can make it right’ he tries again, but it sounds weak, even to his ears. 

‘Goodbye, Zuko of the Pao Tea House’ she is staring at him now, tears in her blue eyes.  
He can’t speak, as he watches her go away. ‘Goodbye, Katara of the Water Tribe’


End file.
